Diversity Committee
****Draft**** of Minutes of Meeting held July 25, 2002, 1:10-2:30 p.m.
605 Hodges Library
Members present: Thura Mack, Gigi Horodysky, Sheila Stephens, Troy Davis, Becky Roller, Maribeth Manoff, LouAnn Blocker, Tiffani Connor, Tamara Miller, Sandra Leach, Renee Smith, Anne Pemberton, Dianne Myers.
Absent: Anthony Smith, Jill Keally, Molly Royse, Dave McClure
Guest: Barbara Dewey
Barbara Dewey opened the meeting by welcoming new members and thanking continuing members for the great work they did last year. Other deans and the provost have praised the committee’s work, especially the creation of the diversity definition and the study done last year of the diversity climate in the library.
Barbara is a member of the ARL diversity committee. Through this committee’s leadership program, she is mentor to another member at Ohio University who may come for a visit. Barbara also mentioned the Africa Semester next spring to be sure we were thinking about it.
Anne Pemberton gave an update on the Diversity forum to be held for UT libraries’ faculty, staff and SLAs, to be held on Tuesday, September 17, at 10 a.m. in room 605. Dan Carlson of Disability Services is coming. The format will probably be a brief presentation by Mr. Carlson, followed by questions and discussion. Another forum will be held at another date at a later time, to be sure evening staff and SLAs can attend.
Dan Carlson will also come to the Sept 10 library faculty meeting to publicize the event and get an idea of what the faculty’s questions are.
The group brought up some more of our questions, such as how to verify that a student is registered with Disability Services, (circulation department has a list and there should be a note in patron’s record) and whether or not students, faculty and staff with temporary disabilities (such as a broken leg) can register.
Thura mentioned the need to publicize the event, to SLAs as well as faculty and staff. She will ask Barbara to promote the event at LMG. Gigi, Renee, Thura and Tiffani will help with refreshments and publicity.
Thura told us that the Geier Decree Forum, which was to be held in August, has to be postponed. Jill is working on it.
Tiffani reported on the TLA subcommittee. The group has decided to only address the first two items of the “recipe for success” (definition and mission statement, and how to evaluate the environment) since there is a 3-hour time limit. She mentioned the need for a facilitator—we can’t pay either a librarian or a Tennessee citizen to do this.
Each group will come away from this pre-conference workshop with a draft diversity statement they can take back to their institution and work on, and a diversity ‘kit.’ There is a need for programs at TLA to cover the other two: barriers to diversity efforts, and programming and publicity. There is also a need for programs on building collections. There is an interested audience for these programs.
Our deadline to submit a proposal for a program to be given at TLA is the end of September. Dianne, Sheila, Gigi, LouAnn, Tamara, Thura will work on this, and are hoping to enlist Troy’s help with graphics needs.
Thura suggested that we sometimes use all or part of our meeting times in the near future for subcommittees to do their work. She wants to be sure each member is on a subcommittee.
Tiffani mentioned that she needed help with the Intercultural Forum to be held in October, and Maribeth, Sheila, Anne, and Dianne will help her with that.
The welcome display on the first floor is almost ready. The group that is working on that project will meet one more time.
Tamara informed the group that the write-up of the LAMA award will be done to be published in a publication such as CRL news.
October is National Disabilities Month, and Tamara will promote that in the UT Library News. Someone mentioned that same month might be Latino-American History Month. We need to find out. Tamara said we need to go ahead and think about whether or not this group would like to do a display in either February or March for Black History or Women’s History Month. The UT commission for Women is working with Archives and Special Collections to digitize some of their materials, and a display on that project might be a good idea.
A date has been set for our trip to the Alex Haley Farm. We will meet at the Melrose Entrance of Hodges library and leave at 9:15 a.m. Instead of getting a van, several people volunteered to drive. Thura will talk to Anthony about directions to the farm and making restaurant reservations for lunch.
Budget: Molly is still working with Jill on this.
Thura asked the group if we want to sponsor tours for of the new Black Cultural Center. The group decided we would co-sponsor with SDAC. We need to find out how many people they can accommodate at a time.
Tamara reported that a copy of the LAMA award certificate has been framed for Barbara to hang in the Administrative offices. The group voted to hang the plaque near the Welcome Center in Hodges library. When we mount the plaque, this would be a good opportunity to have Daily Beacon staff come over, take a picture, and do a write-up publicizing the committee’s work.
With no further business, the meeting adjourned at 2:30 p.m. Next meeting:
Thursday, August 8, 1:10 p.m. Room 605